Welcome to the BrokenOpenMedia Blog

Exploring the era of broken open communications. Sharing insights accumulated over years of combining people, passion, purpose and more times than not, social technologies. Add a dash of perspective. And there you have it.

Archives

It Really Is That Important

Corporations spend massive amounts of money on their branding, nary a CMO or chief creative who doesn’t know how critical the company’s visual identity is. And startup businesses will design a logo way before they even know exactly what their product or service will be.

The brand voice is essentially an extension of the visual identity. The writing on the wall is the glue to your brand’s believability. Just as a logo morphs over time, so will your brand voice. But prioritizing the voice, making it a key part of your overall content strategy, will set your brand afloat of the competition.

Before we go further with this brand voice thing, though, I’d like to make a distinction. I actually prefer to call it a “social voice”, since in many cases companies are starting with social as a way to make their voice sound less like “corporate speak” and more like a real person.

Now that we’ve got that down, let’s explore more on this brand-as-a-real-person concept. Your social voice is intrinsically tied to your brand persona. The persona is something made up, but there is a process for developing it. The persona is an internal-facing character which helps illustrate this voice in our mind’s eyes.

The persona is how you differentiate your brand from others and establish a personality that consumers can relate to. Just saying who you are (what you stand for and believe in) is abstract for customers. On the other hand, you can build trust by conveying relatable characteristics consistently and repeatedly in the voice of this persona. There is a correlation between the way you express ourselves and the strength of your relationships with customers. The open, two-way conversation flow on social channels provide the opportunity to embody your personality frequently, resulting in a collection of experiences that the community has with you, your brand, and the people behind your brand. Over time, this creates a lasting impression.

Lastly, the word “relatable” is not to be taken lightly. If the community feels like you are closer to the way they are, you build a bond, you build relationships that are more meaningful and valuable.

Alas, does this answer the “is it really important question”? Let me know in comments what further questions or thoughts you have on this.